Squirrel tucks into CHEESEBURGER near a McDonald’s branch in Florida

A hungry squirrel was spotted straying from its normal herbivorous diet in Florida, deciding to binge on a McDonald’s cheeseburger instead.

Jamie Walton, 36, filmed the plump rodent casually chewing on its unusual choice of snack near the golden arches in Venice, Florida.

Video footage shows the squirrel sitting down on the floor to enjoy its McDonald’s cheeseburger, which is almost the same width as the chunky rodent.

The grey squirrel furiously chomps down its tasty snack, unaware that its delicious lunch is being caught on camera. 

A squirrel was spotted feasting on a McDonald’s cheeseburger near the golden arches in Venice, Florida, hilarious video footage shows

Ms Walton, who took the video, said: ‘I pulled into a parking space and it was a few feet from my door. There is a McDonald’s adjacent to the parking lot.

‘I thought it was funny and people have found it amusing.’

She shared her hilarious video on Reddit, where it was upvoted thousands of times  and attracted hundreds of comments from surprised viewers.  

‘I love the way it’s sat like it’s having a picnic,’ wrote one viewer.

Another said: ‘I think I’ve found my spirit animal.’

Some viewers were baffled to see a squirrel, which typically enjoys a nutritious diet of nuts, seeds and fruit, feasting on the junk food. 

The top comment was ‘I didn’t know that squirrels ate meat.’ 

A grey squirrel’s diet is typically herbivorous, but some squirrels will eat meat when faced with hunger.

The rodent has been known to eat small birds, young snakes and smaller rodents, plus bird eggs and insects.

Jamie Walton, 36, filmed the plump rodent, which normally diet on seeds and nuts, casually chomping down its unusual choice of snack

Jamie Walton, 36, filmed the plump rodent, which normally diet on seeds and nuts, casually chomping down its unusual choice of snack

In fact, some tropical species have shifted almost entirely to a diet of insects. 

But Ms Walton was not surprised by the squirrel’s choice of snack, adding that the many rodents in Florida ‘eat anything available’.

Numerous viewers even thought that the portly squirrel was an expectant female, despite the rodents normally delivering their young between March and April, and July and August.

Ms Walton said: ‘There have been many comments saying the squirrel is pregnant. It is not typical for them to give birth this time of year, but I am not an expert.’

A squirrel was recently spotted by biologist Jeff Nordland, from San Diego, California, eating a lizard in south-east Arizona.

He believed the hungry creature was a rock squirrel and its meal was a Clark’s spiny lizard, proving that the adorable rodents are not always herbivorous.

How the squirrel managed to capture the lizard remains a mystery, but the biologist suspects that the rodent scavenged it off the road.

And it is not the first time that an animal’s surprising fondness for fast food has stunned the public.

In May, a lizard that had binged on pizza grease was seen horrifically bloated in Cocoa Beach, Florida, because it was unable to digest the sand that had got into its food. 

By the time it was discovered, faeces were found to make up 80 per cent of its body mass.

Herpetologist Natalie Claunch said: ‘To our knowledge, this represents the largest faeces-to-body-mass ratio recorded in a living animal.’

The burger-loving squirrel has no doubt given the famous ‘pizza rat’ from 2015 a run for its money.

The vermin became internet-famous after a video did the rounds, showing the long-tailed rodent trying to carry a large pizza slice down the subway steps in Manhattan. 

The ‘pizza rat’ picked up a staggering 11million views on YouTube since its original sighting. 

Many other rodents, including a groundhog and other squirrels, have since been compared to the well-known rat when they have been spotted chomping down various junk foods.

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